DiogenesLamp: "Which he explicitly had no right to do since our own nation was founded on God given right to independence. "
Which Lincoln had a constitutional duty to do since the US was attacked by a military force "too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the Marshals by law".
DiogenesLamp: "He did not really care about preserving the Union.
What he cared about is preserving the New York POWER CORRIDOR control of Southern economic output. "
This is just one place where DiogenesLamp's semi-rational arguments careen into blithering insanity.
In fact, Lincoln from Illinois was chosen by Republicans in 1860 precisely because he did not have ties to such Eastern "power brokers".
DiogenesLamp: "Lincoln offered to let all the initial seceded states go if Virginia would pledge to remain, "
And here DiogenesLamp resorts to bald-faced lies to force his "logic" to work.
In fact (according to some) Lincoln offered to surrender Fort Sumter in exchange for Virginians' permanent adjournment of their secession convention -- "a fort for a state is a good deal", Lincoln reportedly said.
jmacusa: "and them orders the salves freed. "
DiogenesLamp: "Which only a dictator could do.
US Law protected the rights of slave owners to own slaves.
Ordering them freed was defiance of existing law. "
More lies. US law did not protect states in rebellion.
DiogenesLamp: "He also did not order them freed out of the milk of human kindness.
He ordered them freed to give him political power by disenfranchising all the whites, and granting voting rights to all the blacks.
This is how his party got even more power. "
A happy coincidence of the "milk of human kindness", Republican ideological commitment to anti-slavery policies, protection of Constitutional government and political self interests.
DiogenesLamp: "It's always about money and power.
It is *NEVER* about morality, kindness, or decency. "
Only in the minds of political nihilists like DiogenesLamp.
To normal conservative Americans there is always more morality, kindness and decency than mere Marxist dialectical materialism.